Mary I (1516–1558), Queen of England and Queen of Ireland, daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine o f Aragon, restored the Roman Catholic Church to England. Henry had established and declared himself head of the Church of England in order to annul his marriage to her mother.

She was known as Bloody Mary for her persecution of the Protestants.

Elliot in dismissing the narrator as a heretic is clearly taking the Catholic side of the matter.